Android phones come either equipped with a manufacturer touchscreen keyboard or the default stock Android keyboard offered by Google. Often, these keyboards offer a classic solid design and aren’t meant to be entertaining or go beyond the purpose of allowing you to type texts. Probably one of the reasons you can’t figure out how to type faster is because of having installed on your device one of these clumsy Android keyboards.
But, what is the best keyboard for Android? To help you type faster and type with style, here we’ll list some of the best Android keyboards available to download. Maybe, in the end, we’ll know which is the best keyboard app for Android.
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SwiftKey Keyboard
You’re probably familiar with SwiftKey digital keyboards. SwiftKey has been around in years, in 2014, it made a drastic change in its services that further strengthened the bond with users. Swiftkey keyboard apps went entirely freemium. However, you can still spend money on premium themes There are other free Android keyboards but some attend to kill you with ads, with this one won’t be the case.
SwiftKey prides its self on being the best keyboard app for predictions and autocorrections. It tracks your writing style on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, and even your SMS messages to create a profile of your style and offer better predictions in future uses. It is a type of keyboard that will become better with time. Don’t worry about the tracking feature, and it only stores the words your style of writing makes use the most, regarding your privacy, Swiftkey Keyboard is completely safe to use.
Rated as one of the best keyboards for Android, it supports 200 different languages, features a prediction and autocorrection sensor that functions for key-by-key and swipe input and can store default settings for up to five different languages. Saving you the time to swap from one language to another. All of your data are stored in the cloud, and in case you delete it by mistake, nothing will be lost (you’ll have to sign in with your Google account in order to maintain a file backup of your Swiftkey keyboard).
Its interface is customizable, you can’t resize it like most of the other keyboards by swiping your finger through the screen, but you can choose one of the pre-loaded five different sizes. The My Swifkey Stats feature shows you a full analysis of how you use your keyboard. Will even display a graphic of which letters you use the most, the category under which your words fall, and your typing speed.
In terms of customization, you can choose from hundreds of free themes, change theme layout, store clipboard texts for fast responses and much more. It is one of the best free keyboards you can find and one of those that enable you to type fast.
Gboard – The Google Keyboard
The Google Keyboard, known as Gboard is the most popular keyboard app for Android devices. It has over than 500 million installations and is often pre-installed on Android devices by the manufacturer. It is here listed second because you probably have Gboard on your device and you’re looking for other alternatives.
The Gboard Keyboard is also equipped with sensors to track the way you type to offer custom predictions, supports swipe typing which Google here calls as “glide typing,” and can be adjusted to fit your requirements. It doesn’t have an extensive gallery of themes, but instead, has some forty or so designs to choose from. They are completely customizable and can have its Emoji keyboard function enabled.
Gboard also keeps a recording of your typing activity, supports a broad index of available languages, with the vast majority of them supported in voice typing.
Go Keyboard
If you need a keyboard that goes beyond fast-typing and turns message exchanges into entertainment, the Go Keyboard is all you need to install. This is probably the most customizable keyboard for Android.
Go Keyboard is offered for free to download, but it contains ads. But still, you can personalize it like no other. Everything this app has to offer can be adjusted in accordance with your likeness. You can change its background by uploading an image from your device or picking one of the available landscape photos. Browse through plenty of downloadable themes and emoji stickers, opt for one of 220 supportable text fonts. In addition, you can use the Go Family section to find other useful Go apps such as Android launchers, music players, security apps and more.
As a smart keyboard, its predictions improve with time as the app learns from what you type. And unlike other apps, this keyboard supports some plugins. The Pad plugin is handy for optimizing the keyboard for tablet computers, and the Go Clock will display a stylish timer on your device and Z Camera for snapping amazing selfies.
Fleksy Keyboard
Fleksy is the best alternative to Google Gboard. It has a simple design to that of Google and adds some new features to fill in the gaps. It is much easier to type on it as well. Something everyone will love about this is its predictions mode, that is something you can’t find on any other app.
Once you install the Fleksy Keyboard on your device, it will start an interactive video tutorial where it explains and prides its predictive features and supports. This keyboard has a unique swipe function. Once it finds the word you mistyped or you began to type, it allows you to replace it with a synonym by swiping your finger down or up the screen. You can also use swipe to move from one suggested word to another.
There are a good number of customizable themes to choose from. There are gif’s and stickers that can be activated by tapping the menu button at the top-right side, the top-row can1 be customized with various extensions that perform different tasks. You can even open different apps straight from your keyboard, make your keys pop in different colors, fireworks, receive the shape of a heart. You can also make your keyboard invisible by selecting the Invisible Keyboard extension.
Flash Keyboard
This might be Fleksy’s way of going off classic. The Flash Keyboard is completely different from the main app. It isn’t meant to be a standard app that just does its job of typing well, but besides that, it is intended to offer some sort of entertainment and make messaging fun.
Flash Keyboard comes with a high number of skins, some of which are free and some other paid. If you don’t want to spend anything on keyboard apps, don’t worry. There is no ugly theme for this one. It supports a decent number of languages, has a lot of stickers (with some paid stickers), and has the swipe input for faster predictions.
The most special feature coming on this app is its design editor. The size of the keyboard can be adjusted from anywhere the that makes the keyboard to pop up. Tapping the Flash icon on the left side lets yo the change language, resize keyboard, change buttons style, change key effect, and visit settings for advanced changes. If you tap the box at the bottom-left from the keyboard app homepage, you can find an option that lets you use a custom image for the background and another option to pick on of the colors by rotating the arrow on a colored circle.
Just like other apps, this keyboard is very good for typing and has some additional features that make it more interactive. A solid alternative keyboard for anyone to use, 50 million already have it as their keyboard of choice.
Swype Keyboard
Swype is one of the best keyboard apps for Android that isn’t available for free. It is a paid app and costs only $0.99. In case that’s still too much for you or you don’t want to pay for an application you don’t know what has to offer and looks like, get the Swype plus Dragon free trial.
As a top-rated keyboard app, it has plentiful features that make it stand. Swype has some amazing swipe-based shortcuts (it was the first keyboard with a swipe feature). At the bottom-left of the keyboard is the Swype logo that’s used to apply the Swype gestures. Swiping from the logo to “?123” opens logo editor, to go directly to Number keyboard swipe your finger from Swype to the number 5, hide the keyboard by swiping to Backspace key, enter punctuation by swiping from question mark, comma, or other punctuation to Space key. Swiping from Swype icon to “m” opens Google Maps. There are and other shortcut gestures.
On the trial mode, themes are very limited. But the performance is the same. There is a good amount of theme designs to choose from (on trial mode) and the typing features are all enabled. Swype learns your writing style and creates a database of your dictionary behavior, you can as well store your files on the cloud.
Kika Keyboard
For everyone looking to change their current Android keyboard, Kika has the potential of becoming the app of your choice. It has an amazing design that gives it bigger letters without taking a large field of your phone’s screen. This app is equipped with a special feature I couldn’t find on any other similar application. The app’s homepage has a “news” section that sends you latest funny news and videos. It probably is the only keyboard to entertain you with funny videos and articles taken from all over the web.
Kika supports many languages for which its predictions work perfectly well. It has a large index of changeable themes and text fonts for a personalized keyboard and for emoji lovers, it comes with the Kika Emoji keyboard app edition.
Suggestions on this keyboard will be generated not only by guessing the rest of the word you just typed but also by analyzing the previous words that led to it for better suggestions and faster typing. It stores your contact list and if you start writing down the name of any of your contacts, the keyboard will suggest you their names. Isn’t that great? It supports swipe texting, adds spaces wherever you miss them, and block offensive words on its suggestions.
The widget at top-let opens the option settings where you can customize your keyboard, change its theme, style, text font, or resize it.
Ai Type Keyboard
Expect the best words about Ai.Type Keyboard. It is the app of my choice and it is simply perfect and for me is best Android keyboard. This is the keyboard app to download if you want to type fast without making typos, getting annoyed with useless apps, and for accessing symbols, emojis, and numbers with ease.
Ai.Type has the largest number of designs for keyboards. It currently lists on its index over than 183,000 themes. The numbers grow in time as new designs are added each passing day. The “Make it Mine” feature is the best keyboard editor I have seen on any such app. The editor displays a map of the keyboard from where you can see what parts your editions apply. You are as well allowed to share your custom themes or store them in your database for further use or swapping among them.
A particular feature I love from this keyboard is its header widget. With a swipe it allows you to move to numbers, emoticons, and some text editing services. Such as copy, paste, and the arrow keys to move through letters or paragraphs. It saves me the frustration of my fingertip not touching at the right place between characters when I need to insert a space or comma.
Its word suggestion sensor learns the way you type, it supports swiping input and displays an arrow all over the screen to map your touch. Suggested words appear on top of the window. It has a series of great shortcuts. If you type “gmta” it will show “great minds think alike” on the bar. There are many other shortcuts and you are allowed to add your own as well.
This keyboard for Android supports plugins which are downloadable through Google Play. Some of the best are the Bot Box to discover chatbots and Guggy Gif creator to create amazing gifs with your text. The Ai Type Emoji Keyboard will satisfy needs of emoji lovers.
I couldn’t find a better keyboard than this one, while writing this article, I tested dozens of different apps and Ai Type will continue to be my primary app yet.
American Keyboard
Instead of reminding yourself to be a patriot on fourth of July and Patriot Day, how about coloring your keyboard with the flag of the United States and seeing at America every day? The American Keyboard by Classy Keyboards features an interface dedicated to the national symbols of America. Which is absolutely great.
This app supports different themes and has a large collection of them, but probably you won’t be willing to swap the American flag for any other portrait. It is customizable and you can adjust its size and as well change color and font of keys. There are some largely-spoken supported languages you can write in and a large variety of text fonts to use. An exciting feature of this app is its wallpapers section, you can browse through the gallery and find wallpapers for your Android phone.
You can probably find an American flag skin for any other keyboard app, but this app makes the list for being specially made to bear American symbols.
Smart Keyboard
The Smart Keyboard for Android is not one of those multi-skin options with various supports that learn from your writing style, have a large index of skins and emojis, or show you funny vids. This is one of the very first keyboard apps for Android devices and it still receives regular updates. Thankfully.
It is simple with a few skins to choose from and sports a classic design with a limited number of emoticons. It does the job of typing very well and everyone that wants just that, to type, can make this app theirs for $2.49. This keyboard has the predictive mode and some other tiny key-based tricks.
Emoji Keyboard
If Kika is missing something regarding fun and emoticons with its standard app, it certainly compensates that through this emoji-based keyboard app. It has much more emojis, gifs, and stickers waiting for installation than any other similar app, with all of them being entertaining and fun to use.
The Kika Emoji Keyboard Pro shares most of its DNA with the Kika Keyboard. It continues the news section where you can read the latest news or laugh at latest fun videos from 9Gag and is equipped with the same suggestions tech found at the other mobile keyboard by Kika.
TouchPal Keyboard
The TouchPal Keyboard app is the most interactive of its kind. There is no other keyboard application to include as much entertainment features as this one, you can even play games while waiting for your friend to respond in messenger. TouchPal has no competitor regarding fun things you can do while typing on your phone.
“Fast typing, endless fun” is TouchPal’s representative motto, and it suits them quite well. It has a large collection of skins, you can even create your own custom skin and store it. The predictive and autocorrection function works through the cloud for a larger data of your writing behavior. It supports many different languages and allows you to move from one language to another by simply swiping on the spacebar. Swipe text input is as well supported.
But what really makes this keyboard amazing is its large collection of stickers and Gifs. It currently comes equipped with over than a thousand different emojis and has a sensor to predict what emoji comes next after you pick on one. The patent-pending BoomText by TouchPal allows you to create amazing gifs and emojis by simply typing a text on the writing bar. You can make POTUS say “You are fired,” or “I’m so rich”. There is no limit on what kind and how many emojis you can create. Downloadable skins for emoji creations are as well there for a larger variety of your interactive emojis.
But that’s not all. You can create more emojis and gifs via Pop Smiley feature, typing words will allow you to access awesome text smileys that you can send to your friends as a gif or as an emoji. The last interactive feature but not least important is the game playing section. I couldn’t find a second keyboard to support games, the TouchPal app has that also. There is a massive inventory of games to play directly through your keyboard, all of them are popular and adjusted to match your phone screen.
TouchPal remains to be one of the top keyboards for Android. It listed as the best keyboard for 2016, is one of the best keyboards of 2017, and will certainly rank high as one of the top keyboards for 2018.
Gif Keyboard
The Tenor Gif Keyboard makes it easy for you to send funny gifs to your friends. It is the best keyboard for gifs by far and it is powered by Tenor’s large gallery of user-uploaded gifs. You’ll never run out of them for as long as this gif keyboard remains installed on your device.
To use the Tenor Gif Keyboard is a bit tricky. As most of other apps will automatically request you to enable that particular keyboard from your settings, Tenor kinda forgets to warn you about that. The app store description doesn’t cite it and may make you think that the function will work through your default keyboard. But that’s not the case. You should manually enable and make Gif Keyboard your default app to start using it.
Once enabled, its settings are similar to any other application. You can remove notification sounds and opt for other features, such as predictions, double spaces, and the rest. It has a clean user-friendly design and some themes to choose from, the custom design feature allows you to start a new skin from scratch. Kinda amazing if you hate generic keyboard skins.
But the fun with this Gif keyboard begins once you start typing. For every word for which Tenor has a Gif image, it will suggest you search for gifs. A button will appear on top of your text asking you to search for gifs that match your query. You will certainly surprise your friends with the quickness you can find a suitable gif for any topic.
Slash Keyboard
Slash keyboard is another decent app, it comes with just a few skins, all of which have a classic and user-friendly interface for fast typing. But behind that old view is hidden a whole package of entertainment, features you would just not expect to come with such a simple outlook. This keyboard is great for interactive conversations. It is the best keyboard that instantly allows you to source your words from leading information sites or gif sendings.
The Android keyboard app comes in multiple languages, supports predictive mode, and has a small number of changeable skins.
The fun with Slash is located elsewhere. This app lets you connect it with your social media and other websites/apps. By tapping the Slash symbol from your conversation, you can instantly share gifs and emojis from third-party sites, share the latest news from the mainstream media, send song lyrics, send songs from Apple Music, products from Amazon, and more. You can even send the latest trending videos on YouTube. The list of sites and what you can send straight from your Slash Keyboard app to your friends is way too long for a full coverage over here.
Ginger Keyboard
Ginger is another interactive keyboard app that allows you to do much more than typing text messages. It doesn’t have many skins to opt from, but it is customizable and allows to swap through colors and button customizations. The vast majority of pre-loaded skins are paid, but you can still create a theme on your own through the editor.
Ginger allows you to create shortcuts that appear on top of the keyboard for your favorite apps and search engines. It provides direct access to Google services and has a built-in word-based software that allows you to search word synonyms and definitions. The Spelling Book feature consists of an index of misspelled words and confusing words.
Yet another special feature coming with the keyboard is the gameplaying option. It can be accessed by tapping the four windows widget at top-left (the one that looks like Microsoft Windows logo).
